‘The East’ Intersects Anarchy Collectives With Corporate CEOs

Before they wrote their new film, “The East,” Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij spent a summer as “freegans” living in tent cities, sharing food retrieved from dumpsters with other freegans, and reusing discarded items rather than contributing to the consumer culture of buying and selling.

After their “Buy Nothing Summer,” Marling and Batmanglij — the two filmmakers behind the indie film “Sound of My Voice” — decided to take their experiences and write a spy thriller about a group of people who live off the grid, by their own rules, who try to right the wrongs they perceive in contemporary society. The freegans, in other words, became an anarchy collective. Their number one target? Corporate CEOs.

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